Lightfoot’s years add class, authority to iconic songs
By Melissa Martin
For seven years, Gordon Lightfoot’s travels kept him from Winnipeg. When the legend returned Tuesday night to promote his recent greatest hits package, it wasn't just fans who were thrilled.
“I’m happy to be back in Randy and Burton country,” Lightfoot told the elated crowd, minutes before launching into his classic Rainy Day People.
“I’ve been here so many times.”
Of course Lightfoot would dig the Guess Who’s hometown; it was Cummings who once sang that the Ontario-born folk icon was “an artist painting Sistine masterpieces of pine and fir and backwoods.”
That’s high praise, and not undeserved.
But Lightfoot has changed since the Guess Who named a song after him. At 68, he’s nudging his golden years; Tuesday night, the strain of age (and a 2002 illness that left him in a coma) was visible to the eye.
And where Cummings once sang of the husky vibrance of Lightfoot’s voice, Tuesday night the singer’s vocal sounded wispy.
After sailing onstage stage shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday night, his voice quavered from the opening rhymes of set starter Cotton Jenny, and broke through the pretty Carefree Highway.
Here’s the good news: Those mature vulnerabilities enhanced Lightfoot’s performance. The oft-covered songwriter always seemed too wise for his age; now his physical form reflects his musical one. Lightfoot’s songs concern cycles, sorrows, and small joys; the cracks in his voice add weight to those themes.
Though there were almost 1,500 people in the Pantages Tuesday night, Lightfoot’s gracious warmth made it feel as intimate as a coffee shop and as friendly as a living-room jam.
The audience certainly felt that way, calling out good-natured song requests and reverently murmuring along as Lightfoot crooned his way through the iconic Sundown.
After the electrifying response to that tune, Lightfoot concluded his first hour-long set with his dramatic, unusual breakthrough hit, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
After a short intermission, Lightfoot peppered his second set with more conversation, regaling the audience with his wry humour.
He also tossed in If You Could Read My Mind (the tune which became one of the 20th century’s most covered, including a truly irritating ‘98 dance-pop version by Stars On 54). Lightfoot performs again Wednesday at the Pantages; that show is also sold out.
There is no opening act.
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